Shadowlands - Perk Guide

Perks are one of the most valuable additions to your character in Shadowlands. They are a totally new set of abilities that you choose for your character as you progress through Anarchy Online, the higher in level you get, the more options open up to you through this new system. So how exactly does it all work and fit together? Read on to find out.

How do I get Perks?

You don't actually have to 'do' anything other then level in the normal fashion, every ten levels starting at level ten you will be awarded a perk point until you reach level 200, for every shadowlevel you reach after level 200 you will gain an extra perk point. This means that you get forty perks in all at level 220.

So I'm level 10, how do I access these 'perks'?

Ok, so you want to start looking at perks. To access the perks menu you can either just press the Perks menu button in the new GUI, or simply press shift-p to bring the menu up directly

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That will bring up the perks menu. You will notice that there are three tabs across the top of the screen, these break down the perks in categories:

Profession Perks:These are the perks unique to your profession, special abilities that other professions can't specialize in

Group Perks:These perks are accessible by several professions, but the display will only show those relevant to your own profession

General Perks:These are available to all professions and contain more generic bonuses

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The first thing you will probably notice is that there are lots of perks! Don't worry and don't rush into anything there are many ways in which you might want to specialize your character so take some time to look through them all and see what they have to offer. To view exactly what a perk offers just run your cursor over the perk and the description will display like in the screenshot below:

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You will notice that it shows you the level requirements and any other requirements, to train in each level of perk you must have the previous level of that perk already trained, you can't jump straight to the last tier of a Perk! Take a look at the screenshot below and see that Acrobat 2 has a requirement of having Acrobat 1 already trained

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One thing to bear in mind about these passive bonuses is that they stack. The amounts shown in for any given perk will be added to any previous bonuses from any other perk in that line. You can gain extra skill bonuses up to +200 from a single perkline if you take it all the way, ability bonuses reach a total of +100 for a single line, although remember different lines may buff the same ability or skill (Acrobat and Enhance DNA both add to agility for example). Worth noting is that some perklines have a limit on how high up you can train depending on your profession. For instance Enforcers can take blunt mastery higher the meta-physcists can.

So what's the best layout for me I hear you ask? Well help is at hand from the two main database sites. Both Anarchy Mainframe and Auno's have built superb Perk Calculators for you to use to check out in advance what you might want to do with your perk points. These are very valuable tools! Don't be afraid to experiment with these and bear in mind that no matter what other people tell you, your character is always slightly different from someone else. So use these tools to see what might, or might not work for your character.

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The Perk Planning tools at Anarchy Mainframe (left) and Auno.org

To pick a perk just click on the perk itself - you will note that the perk window is actually showing you which perk's are currently available. They will have a gray dot next to them, the perks you already have will show a green dot, and the ones you can't yet pick will be red. Once you click on it a warning window will appear to confirm that you want to take this perk as you can see in the screenshot below:

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Ok, so now you've picked a perk or two, how do you use them? Well most of the perks are 'passive' meaning they just confer a stat bonus to you, you don't actually have to 'use' them, they are there on your character all of the time just like a piece of armor or an implant. Take a look at the panel below for the Acrobat 2 skill - see how at the bottom it says - 'Enable Special: Limber' this means that by taking that perk you will get access to the special ability 'Limber'

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Alas, there doesn't seem to be any way within the GUI currently to actually see what that special does, so that's why it is important to look up your abilities on the two sites mentioned above as they can show you what those specials actually do! Both are excellent tools, which you prefer is just a matter of taste really.

However some of the perks do have special abilities attached. At various point a perk line will offer you a special ability or move that is used in a similar fashion to the other special attacks in AO (like Brawl or Full Auto). However there is a special twist to these perk special abilities! These different specials come in two distinct types - Perks that improve their bonus the more perks you have in a line, and Perks that actually improve the performance of other perks! Not only that but some of these Perks acts as 'primers' for perks of another profession! This means that knowing what your perks do, and who else they might aid is very important!

So in effect there is an interdependence between certain perk lines - most will do something alone (although not all be warned!), but will be greatly improved by either you or the mob (whoever the target is) already being effected by another perk special.

Also some perks are chain combinations - meaning that you have to have just used one perk to use the next one, kind of like combo moves in your average beat-em-up arcade game!

To access perks activate the action button as shown below and navigate to 'Perk Actions', depending on your keyboard and mouse configuration you can then left or right click the action. That's a bit cumbersome though isn't it? It's far easier if you move your special abilities to a hotbar spot for easy access in the heat of a fight!

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Putting a Perk Special on your Hotbar

This is a simple case of holding down the relevant mouse button until you see a special icon appear at the end of your cursor like in the screenshot below. Then you can just drag it to your hotbar like any other icon.

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Viola! One perk special attack on your hotbar, given how many abilities you might get, you might want to re-arrange your hot bars a bit to give you easy access to the perk special abilities you need!

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Removing a Perk

Ok, so now you have your perks going, now what happens if you make a mistake or would like to re-train and take a different perk? Well the good news is that this is very much possible, although with one consideration - you can only do this once every 72hrs. Note this isn't in-game time, that's 72hrs real time, the counter keeps ticking down whilst you are off-line or playing another character. To remove a perk hit the 'Remove Perk' button in the bottom of the perk display, your cursor will then change to a red 'R' as shown below. Then click on the perk you want to remove.

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You will then get a confirm box asking you to confirm. Press 'ok' and you will notice that a timer has appeared in the display in the bottom right and it has started counting down. You will not be able to reset another perk until that timer reaches zero again. Note that although you can't do it for another 72hrs, the perk point for the perk you just untrained becomes available immediately.

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So there you have it...perks in all their glory! Hopefully this guide will have helped explain a little about how they all work and fit together.